How Garmin's Cirqa Smart Band Compares to Other Fitness Bands - DTNS 5314

**Jason Howell** (0:04)
This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, July 21st, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context to help each other understand.

**Tom Merritt** (0:13)
Today, Google has new models, yes, but no, it is not the 3.5 Pro. Before we get to that, though, there's a new screenless fitness tracker from Garmin, and Jason, I suspect, is talking about it and mentioning the name whoop will summon Huyen Tue Dao.

**Jason Howell** (0:28)
That's the word that does it, whoop, and then suddenly she appears.

**Tom Merritt** (0:31)
There it is.

**Jason Howell** (0:31)
Maybe, we don't know, we'll just have to find out, but in the meantime, you're stuck with us. I'm Jason Howell.

**Tom Merritt** (0:36)
I'm Tom Merritt.

**Jason Howell** (0:37)
We're going to start with what you need to know with a big story.
All right. Yes, Garmin has introduced the Cirqa Smart Band. This is the company's first screenless fitness tracker.
It's a very minimalist band, as many of the screenless fitness trackers are. It can be worn on your wrist. It can be worn on your arm, depending on where you want to throw it. I think that flexibility is kind of nice. It has a single side button for cycling between, if you happen to be wearing it, between your favorite activities, let's say. So there's at least some sense of tactile control compared to some of the others out there. Even without a subscription, which is to say that you don't need a subscription to do all the features, but without a subscription, it auto tracks more than 80 workouts, tracks heart rate, blood oxygen, stress, skin temperature, sleep, steps, calories, recovery, which is nice, has insights that are delivered to your smartphone via the Garmin Connect app. It also taps into the phone's GPS for route tracking, has up to 10 days worth of battery life. So this thing's pretty solid and very capable. It's also a number of strap options as well, two sizes, seven colors at launch. I went to the website to see for pre-order, and I could only see four colors on the order page online, but the colors that I did see skewing very muted and dark. So not a whole lot of vibrant colors in the offering. Costs $200 available to order on July 24th. So I guess the product page that I was looking at was like a pre-order page. There is a lot of competition out there, but right off the top, just to start off with Tom, what are you thinking? What are your thoughts here?

**Tom Merritt** (2:25)
Well, I don't know.
I don't know what to think because where my head goes is, is how does this compare to the Fitbit Air? How does this compare to the Whoop? And you were about to tell us that.

**Jason Howell** (2:40)
So, okay, okay. All right. Well, I mean, there are others out there, obvious clearly with screen without Whoop gives you the tracker on a display list form factor, makes you pay for a subscription though, right? $199 up to $359 a year. Google's Fitbit Air sells you the tracker for $100, makes you pay for a subscription for advanced features for around $100 per year.
Garmin has also included some advanced features that are available with a Connect Plus subscription, but you get lots of features without it. It's $200, like I said. So that's a great differentiator right there.

**Tom Merritt** (3:20)
And I think that's the interesting part. It's like, oh, do I want to just pay for the features? Do I want to pay less, but maybe not get as many features, right? With the Fitbit Air. Or do I want to pay more, actually the same amount as I'd pay for a year of whoop, but then I've just got it.
So I think this is an indication that this particular product category is in demand. They have this many different companies trying this different many approaches to see which one is the one that consumers want the most.

**Jason Howell** (3:54)
Totally. And sometimes the best way to talk about fitness trackers like this is to yell into the ether, whoop, and hope that Huyen Tue Dao suddenly appears to give us her take. There she is, Huyen.

**Tom Merritt** (4:08)
How are you doing? Whoop, there he is. There she is. Hi, guys.

**Huyen Tue Dao** (4:13)
Yes, I happen to be wearing two fitness trackers right now.

**Jason Howell** (4:16)
Oh, wow.

**Huyen Tue Dao** (4:17)
I'm wearing my Fitbit Air and I'm wearing my Pixel Watch 4

**Jason Howell** (4:20)
So then you get one of these and you put it on your arms so you can wear three at once, right?